When good Parson Taylor was summoned to the tea table he said: “Ladies, I have been so interested in your conversation, I thought it worth preserving. So I wrote it down and will read it to you.” Great was the amusement when he read the persistent efforts of their friend to tell the story of “My Goose.” After all, human nature is much the same in all generations.
The town enjoyed in the old days quite a reputation for good living, and many were the notable feasts cooked over the great fireplaces and in the huge brick ovens before the days of stoves and ranges. What an amount of seasoned hickory logs went up the chimney in smoke to cook them! Forty cords of wood, the record gives, as one item of the minister’s salary for the year.
The means of transportation in early times furnished one of the most serious problems. The Housatonic Railroad was not completed till 1840. Before this, all transportation of produce and merchandise was by wagons to Bridgeport, and thence by sloop to New York. The mail also came in much the same way, being brought here from Bridgeport by a carrier on horseback. Our old friend, the late Colonel Wm. J. Starr, remembered the postman of his childhood days, who announced his arrival by shouting as he rode, “News! News! Some lies and some trues!”
We owe to Colonel Starr a vivid picture of the Main Street of the village nearly a century ago, as he recalled it. It is not an agreeable picture. Pigs were kept in the street, and before almost every house was a long trough, where twice a day they were fed. We can hardly wonder that fevers broke out mysteriously. Geese also roamed at will, and mischievous youths were known to play a practical joke on some unpopular man by penning all the geese in the village into his front porch during the night.
Many of the front yards were adorned with huge wood-piles. A part of the street was a swamp, through which ran a crooked water course that, after a shower, left pools of mud, in which pigs and cattle cooled themselves, for “The Green” was also a cattle pasture. The story is told of a dignified gentleman of the old school, who, dressed in immaculate white on a summer Sunday, was hastening across “The Green” to church, making his way among the puddles, when a large hog, frightened from a pool, ran violently against him. He had an unsought ride on its back across the street, and was deposited in a puddle, in full view of the waiting congregation gathered on the church steps.
In 1838 the open-paved watercourse through “The Green” was constructed and was regarded as a grand improvement.
The Village Improvement Society as organized in 1871,
and, a little later, under its auspices, “The Green” was put in its present attractive condition, a covered brick sewer being laid to replace the open-paved watercourse which previously ran through the center of the street. This was accomplished on the initiative, and largely though the instrumentality, of Mr. and Mrs. William D. Black, whose efforts and energies were always directed for the benefit of the village. A large and successful fair to raise money for this purpose was held in a tent on “The Green” in July, 1872, and the residents of Main Street accepted a voluntary assessment of a large amount to perfect the work.
A familiar and welcome sight of long ago was the village doctor on horseback with his saddlebags. He was the friend of everyone, beloved and venerated next to the minister. His store of huge pills and herbs and simples carried healing and comfort to all the countryside. Dr. Jehiel Williams was the last of these old-time doctors in New Milford. He is still remembered by many with reverent tenderness. His kindness knew no bounds, and his hearty laugh carried cheer wherever he went. A cautious man he was. Even his most cherished opinions were always prefaced with “I ’most guess.” He was cautious also in his remedies, and the overworked woman of this busy age would hardly accept his cure for nerves and sleeplessness: “Take a hop, put it in a teacup and fill the cup with hot water. Drink it at night and I ’most guess you will feel better.” It was whispered that his huge pills were often made of bread, when he felt none were needed.
He rode up and down the hills for a lifetime, charging twenty-five cents for a visit, fifty cents when the journey was long—afterwards sixty-two and a half cents! On one occasion he rode five miles to find that his patient had been already relieved by some housewife’s simple remedy. He declined any fee, merely saying, “What I have learned in this cure is worth far more to me than the trouble of coming.”
He was friend and helper to three generations, and when, at last, full of years and honors, he went to his well-earned rest, every household of the town mourned his departure.
Slavery existed here, as elsewhere in New England, in the first century of the town. A written advertisement for a runaway slave, offering a reward for his capture, and signed, “Gideon Treat, New Milford, September, 1774,” is still in existence. It sounds strange enough to twentieth century ears. Judging from the records, slaves were generally well treated in New Milford, and many owners freed their own negroes long before the days of slavery were over.
A woman is recorded as the first in our town to free a slave. Mary Robburds, in 1757, gave her negro servant Dan his freedom. Partridge Thatcher, a lawyer here, was especially noted for his kindness to his slaves. Judge David S. Boardman wrote concerning him: “He had no children, but a large number of negroes whom he treated with a kindness enough to put to shame the reproaches of all the Abolitionists of New England.” And he freed them all during his lifetime.
But the sins of old days in this matter were somewhat atoned for in after years by the zeal of the Abolitionists of New Milford in aiding runaway slaves to reach Canada and freedom. In the later days of slavery in the South there were several stations of the Underground Railroad in this vicinity. Mr. Charles Sabin’s house in Lanesville was one, and the house of Mr. Augustine Thayer on Grove Street in this village was another. Mr. Thayer and his good wife devoted their lives to the Abolition cause. They helped many poor slaves on their way, rising from their beds in the night to feed and minister to them, and secreting them till they could be taken under cover of darkness to Deacon Gerardus Roberts’ house on Second Hill, from there to Mr. Daniel Platt’s in Washington, and so on, by short stages, all the way until the Canadian border was reached.
The spirit and courage of the fathers have descended to the sons through many generations. This has been proved again and again in later years, notably in our Civil War. During all the dark four years from the terrible day when the flag fell at Fort Sumter to the memorable rejoicing over the fall of Richmond, there were not wanting brave sons of this old town
| SALLY NORTHROP Born 1776, died 1870 A resident of New Milford for One Hundred Years | DAVID CURTIS SANFORD Born 1798, died 1864 A Justice of the Supreme Court of Connecticut |
| HENRY SEYMOUR SANFORD Born 1832, died 1901 Son of David C. Sanford: Attorney at the Fairfield and Litchfield County Bars |
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